NCAA to Consider Banning Use of Athletes' Names, Likenesses in Video Games

Under a proposed bylaw, institutions, conferences, and the NCAA would be prohibited from using the names or likenesses of individual student-athletes on retail products, including video games.

From a technical standpoint, the bylaw wouldn't appear to change all that much in the video game industry. Currently, in basketball and football video games, college athletes appear at their appropriate positions, along with their appropriate jersey numbers, and their video game images play according to their unique strengths and weaknesses. Their names, however, are not included (for example, in ESPN College Hoops 2K5 for the Playstation 2 and XBox, this image shows how N.C. State's Julius Hodge appears in his correct jersey, #24, but without his name). Though the NCAA claims that it does not currently allow video game images to reflect the likenesses of individual players, I found the video game image and an actual image of Julius Hodge to appear strikingly similar. To further cast doubt on the NCAA's contention, video game players have the option of editing players, so that if one edits the player's name from "#24" to "Julius Hodge", not only will player's jersey now say "Hodge", but the announcer in the video game will start saying "Julius Hodge" rather than "#24." In other words, the idea that these images are not actual representations appears rather inconsistent with practical realities. Perhaps the proposed bylaw would preclude "back-doors" like player edits and player images that bear more than a passing resemblance to the real player.

But that only begs the question: Who is really being harmed if Julius Hodge and his N.C. State teammates are represented the same way in video games that Emeka Okafor and his Charlotte Hornets' teammates are represented? Well, the NCAA, which receives over $500 million for each March Madness tournament along with significant revenue from the $1.7 billion collegiate merchandise sales market, claims, in Article 2.8 of its Constitution, to be "protecting [student-athletes] from exploitation by professional and commercial enterprises." See, that's why college players don't receive any of the revenue from the video games that depict them -- they are being "protected" from receiving that revenue.

You wonder why some 18- and 19-year olds would rather go to the pros, where they opt out of such "protection."

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